Page:Watch and Ward (Boston, Houghton, Osgood and Company, 1878).djvu/130

Rh Nora should remain with her companion until she had communicated with her guardian.

Entering Mrs. Keith's drawing-room a couple of hours later, Hubert found the young girl on her knees before the hearth. He sat down near by, and in the glow of the firelight he noted her altered aspect. A year, somehow, had made more than a year's difference. Hubert, in his intercourse with women, was accustomed to indulge in a sort of cool contemplation which, as a habit, found favor according to the sensibility of the ladies touching whom it was practised. It had been intimated to him more than once, that, in spite of his cloth, just a certain turn of the head made this a license. But on this occasion his gaze was all respectful. He was lost in admiration; for Nora was beautiful. She had left home a simple maiden of common gifts, with no greater burden of loveliness than the slender, angular, neutral grace of youth and freshness; and here she stood, a mature, consummate, superb young woman! It was as if she had bloomed into ripeness in the sunshine of a great contentment; as if, fed by the sources of æsthetic delight, her nature had risen calmly to its allotted level. A singular harmony and serenity seemed to pervade her person. Her beauty lay in no inordinate perfection of individual features, but in the deep sweet fellowship that reigned between smile and step and glance and tone. The total effect was an impression of the simplest and yet the richest loveliness. "Pallas Athene," said Hubert to himself, "sprang full-armed, we are told, from the brain of Jove. But we have a Western version of the myth. She was born in Missouri; for years she wore aprons and carried